Chinese Soldiers March Into Indian Territory, Pitch Tents, Declare Land For China

China and India are once again at each other’s throats over an
unmarked border in the Himalayas.

But this time, oddly, nobody seems to know why.

In mid-April, around 30 Chinese troops marched across the de
facto border between China and India and pitched tents 19
kilometers inside Indian territory, just when relations between
the two were going so well. The Indian government, which has so
far exercised relative restraint, was accused by opposition
politicians as being “weak,
cowardly and incompetent” for not driving the troops off. The
Chinese, on the other hand,
deny that their soldiers ever crossed into Indian territory.

China and India haven’t been able to agree on how to carve up the
Himalayas since they fought over the border in 1962, but this
latest development has baffled experts. As recently as March,
Chinese leader Xi Jinping met with the Indian prime minister at a
summit in South Africa,
calling for India and China to deepen military ties and come
to a border solution “as soon as possible.”

So why would China provoke conflict between the two nuclear
neighbors? Here are some possible explanations.

China is flexing its muscles

On coming to power this year, Xi wasted no time in exerting
control over the People’s Liberation Army, even though he is the
only civilian on its 11-man Central Military Commission. He
launched a campaign to re-focus the armed forces to “fight and
win wars” and has not shied away from other border disputes, such
as those
with Japan.

Dr Li Mingjiang, an assistant professor at Singapore’s Nanyang
Technological University, told
the South China Morning Post that the border dispute
“might have been caused by the new leadership’s assertive stance
on issues of national interest…Such high-profile political
signals would only encourage the army, especially frontier
forces, to toughen their own stance in local disputes.”

Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times reports that
at least one Indian diplomat puts the whole thing down to “an
over-zealous Chinese commander.”

But it does seem unlikely that the Chinese incursion would have
lasted so long without Beijing’s consent. The
Wall Street Journal suggests that the Chinese may be reacting
to an Indian program to accelerate road building near the de
facto border, known as the Line of Actual Control. Srikanth
Kondapalli, a professor of Chinese studies based in New Delhi,
told the Journal that China may be working out a “negotiating
point to force India to stall its actions close to the border.”

Which way is north?

An equally plausible explanation is that ambiguity and an
unwillingness to retreat was the cause of all the fuss. Troops
from both the Chinese and Indian militaries cross the unmarked
border on a regular basis, sometimes unaware of having done so.
“This sort of situation happens easily because the two sides have
different understandings of the Line of Actual Control,” Zhang
Li, a professor at Sichuan University,
told the Financial Times.

Indian politicians disagree, saying that Chinese troops
deliberately crossed into Indian territory and have since refused
to leave. The government has promised to defend Indian interests,
while opposition parties accuse it of cowardice and inaction.

Chinese premier Li Keqiang is expected to visit India in May, and
this issue is likely to be raised. But neither the Indian or
Chinese governments look likely to back down soon. Belligerent
rhetoric from India’s opposition parties gives prime minister
Manmohan Singh few options, while Beijing will be loath to set a
precedent for other border disputes. Besides, negotiation can be
hard when you don’t know what the other side wants.